In the faculty of science & technology at mechanical engineering at Keio University in Japan they are engineering rover robots that can take be taken in extreme environments such as the moon, mars.
This lab is especially focused in building rovers for extreme environment’s.

The rovers are equipped with multiple cameras which they also detect the environment type , cameras and range finders are used to prepare the rover for the environment’s it’s going to be on.

The Three key elements are:

1.) Vehicle Terrain interaction mechanics:

Mechanics of sand and wheels

Dynamic simulator

Visualization of sand flow

What this means is that the scientists analyze the rover behavior in simulator’s, while developing vehicle slip compensation systems ,and in wheel sensors systems allowing the wheels to know the behavior to response to.
2.) Autonomous mobility systems:

Environmental recognition sensors

Path and motion planning

Robot localization

In the Autonomous mobility systems is being able to detect the environments types using the on board multiple cameras and laser range finders with feature point matching in environment recognition, also using the LRF and robot GUI, Path planning based on the rovers digital elevation map and field testing.

3.) Robotic device development

Power system testing

Laser rangefinder development

Mobile robot development

The rover will be able to operate in rough terrain, and using the latest technologies to be able to succeed in any terrain type.